Importing from the UK - definitive guide (Q and A)

pale rider

Check directly with your insurance company, best to avoid getting this wrong.

Have you not gone back to where you had it inspected, that would be my starting point, keep notes of your meetings and hopefully you have a copy of the vrt online calculation from December.

pale rider

I wasn't able to import in December as I only sold my car a week ago as I posted before, I don't want hybrid or electric and find that importing is now off the table for me, mainly due to WLTP, I have been shopping online on DD etc looking for my chosen car in an 18 or 19, the local lads have revised prices upwards which to me is daft, are there that many people willing to cough up 30k+ that they feel they can do that.

I'm on the fence, I may buy new or I may buy a smaller older car as we have a fresh car in the house already and sit out this situation in the hope things improve and I get the choice of model I'm after..

ConfusedCircles

Yeah I’m going to get on to the insurance tomorrow. The guy in the VRT place said there was nothing they could do and that I just had to wait. I stupidly didn’t take a screenshot of my vrt quote in December but I think I’m ok in that respect as going by their website the car will be valued based on the date it was inspected (hopefully as it’s almost €5k dearer now). It’s just getting a price now is the issue..
Thanks for your help!

pale rider wrote: »

Check directly with your insurance company, best to avoid getting this wrong.

Have you not gone back to where you had it inspected, that would be my starting point, keep notes of your meetings and hopefully you have a copy of the vrt online calculation from December.

BanananaBread

road_high wrote: »

Has anyone gone through the process since jan 01st?
Either from GB or NI and how was it?

Would be great to hear anyone's experience on this. I've spotted a 2018 car in NI with NI plates. I'm assuming the car was first registered in GB as the reg starts with XNZ?

If this is VAT free I would make the purchase this week but really can't afford to base anything on assumption.

The revenue information is incredibly wordy, be great to have something in black and white!

mgn

BanananaBread wrote: »

Would be great to hear anyone's experience on this. I've spotted a 2018 car in NI with NI plates. I'm assuming the car was first registered in GB as the reg starts with XNZ?

If this is VAT free I would make the purchase this week but really can't afford to base anything on assumption.

The revenue information is incredibly wordy, be great to have something in black and white!

XNZ is an NI reg, so you should be okay.

pale rider

BanananaBread wrote: »

Would be great to hear anyone's experience on this. I've spotted a 2018 car in NI with NI plates. I'm assuming the car was first registered in GB as the reg starts with XNZ?

If this is VAT free I would make the purchase this week but really can't afford to base anything on assumption.

The revenue information is incredibly wordy, be great to have something in black and white!

No vat however check the VRt payable and let us know if you still see it as a good opportunity to upgrade, cheers.

galwaytt

pale rider wrote: »

I wasn't able to import in December as I only sold my car a week ago as I posted before, I don't want hybrid or electric and find that importing is now off the table for me, mainly due to WLTP, I have been shopping online on DD etc looking for my chosen car in an 18 or 19, the local lads have revised prices upwards which to me is daft, are there that many people willing to cough up 30k+ that they feel they can do that.

I'm on the fence, I may buy new or I may buy a smaller older car as we have a fresh car in the house already and sit out this situation in the hope things improve and I get the choice of model I'm after..

My brother was watching one car with an eye to making an offer on it. No need now; the seller has now put it UP €2400 overnight: it's not going to be feasible to import one now, so sellers know this.

reubenreuben

galwaytt wrote: »

My brother was watching one car with an eye to making an offer on it. No need now; the seller has now put it UP €2400 overnight: it's not going to be feasible to import one now, so sellers know this.

greedy b********t's

BanananaBread

pale rider wrote: »

No vat however check the VRt payable and let us know if you still see it as a good opportunity to upgrade, cheers.

VRT is €3000, NOx €140. However these costs were never in question because I can't find anything with similar spec this side of the border.

For context, I'm looking at a Mini, which means there are lots of personalisation options. Unfortunately, 90% of the ones I'm seeing on DD are very very basic. (Although I do understand that this is the same for most other cars in the Republic!)

wrcarter

ConfusedCircles wrote: »

Hi all, just wondering if anyone has any advice for me. I bought a car in the north before Christmas and luckily enough got inspected for VRT just before Christmas as well. They told me they didn’t have a price for me on the day but that they’d be in touch. This Friday will be 30 days since I presented it for inspection, and therefore my insurance will lapse I’m led to believe? I’ve tried to get on to revenue through my online account as I can’t get a phone number or email address anywhere and no one is getting back to me. Anyone in the same boat?

Call up the vrt booking line. The same happened me, I never got a call back. I called them on Monday. Turns out my valuation was on the system since the 10th. When I was in the centre, he said they are making loads of mistakes at the moment.

deezell

Phil.x wrote: »

Eamon Ryan doesn't care, he wants no more polluting English imports, only new and expensive EV's.

Save the environment and lots of vat,vrt, etc etc. Its a win win for him.

That ludicrous 5 grand Nox was a SIMI thing, they had a relentless campaign about 'UK Dumping smokey Diesels". It was really about trying to prop up the prices they sought for the very same cars they had taken in as trade ins, they had NO problem selling those smokey diesels as they called them. They couldn't give a sh!t about the Nox emissions.

rodge123

Newstalk talking about importing cars from uk now in few mins

neall

Hi all,

I have seen a car in the north from a dealer. Its a Vat Qualifying 2018 hybrid car, worth £20000
Just wondering can anyone explain Vat qualifying.
If the vat is claimed back from the dealer. Do I have to pay vat aswel as vrt to register in the south? Or just thre vrt?
Thanks

Revenue should have an extensive Q & A up on importing cars at this stage.

ConfusedCircles

Thanks for that! Got the price, €1000 dearer than the online calculator unfortunately.

wrcarter wrote: »

Call up the vrt booking line. The same happened me, I never got a call back. I called them on Monday. Turns out my valuation was on the system since the 10th. When I was in the centre, he said they are making loads of mistakes at the moment.

deezell

neall wrote: »

Hi all,

I have seen a car in the north from a dealer. Its a Vat Qualifying 2018 hybrid car, worth £20000
Just wondering can anyone explain Vat qualifying.
If the vat is claimed back from the dealer. Do I have to pay vat aswel as vrt to register in the south? Or just thre vrt?
Thanks

Buy from dealer without UK 20%, i.e, take one sixth off the invoice, then add 21% VAT to the invoice when you register it here, But, its seems that you can just buy a UK plated car from a NI dealer including UK VAT , and then just pay the VRT here. There was no incentive to remove 20% and add what was 23% before brexit, Vat qualifying cars used only suit businesses who could claim it back, but now the reality of double VAT post Brexit for mainland imports has brought them to the fore. The NI situation is still confusing though.

road_high

rodge123 wrote: »

Newstalk talking about importing cars from uk now in few mins

Did they talk in any definite terms on anything?

BanananaBread

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Revenue should have an extensive Q & A up on importing cars at this stage.

The ideal scenario would be to pop in some of car details and be presented with estimates for VAT, Customs, VRT, NOx (Similar to the the VRT calculator).

However, knowing these numbers might entice people to import so I don't think it will be top of Revenue's to-do list anytime soon.

pale rider

BanananaBread wrote: »

The ideal scenario would be to pop in some of car details and be presented with estimates for VAT, Customs, VRT, NOx (Similar to the the VRT calculator).

However, knowing these numbers might entice people to import so I don't think it will be top of Revenue's to-do list anytime soon.

These numbers might entice people to import, good one, worthy of Jimmy Carr that....nobody in their right mind doing the most basic of research on late model diesels for example will follow through with a personal import, it is cost prohibitive at this time.

road_high

pale rider wrote: »

These numbers might entice people to import, good one, worthy of Jimmy Carr that....nobody in their right mind doing the most basic of research on late model diesels for example will follow through with a personal import, it is cost prohibitive at this time.

It’s the VAT situation that is the problem. The VRT and Nox could have been worked around as ever. If that remains as is from GB then it is completely out of the question to import as before

neall

deezell wrote: »

Buy from dealer without UK 20%, i.e, take one sixth off the invoice, then add 21% VAT to the invoice when you register it here, But, its seems that you can just buy a UK plated car from a NI dealer including UK VAT , and then just pay the VRT here. There was no incentive to remove 20% and add what was 23% before brexit, Vat qualifying cars used only suit businesses who could claim it back, but now the reality of double VAT post Brexit for mainland imports has brought them to the fore. The NI situation is still confusing though.

Ah I see. Not really worth going down that road then. Thanks for that.

gally74

bca auctions have a large qty of vat qualifed cars...

Isambard

gally74 wrote: »

bca auctions have a large qty of vat qualifed cars...

Indeed but not straightforward buying them. Could only avoid double VAT if you could buy at 0% or reclaim VAT, most of us can't. Dealers will snap them up and the public buying from them will pay market price.

LillySV

The wife’s an accountant and they just got an email from chartered accountants with this

deezell

LillySV wrote: »

The wife’s an accountant and they just got an email from chartered accountants with this

" ...onward sold to a car-dealer in ROI."

Not to a private individual in ROI. Is this the end game?, imports from the UK restored with no additional VAT, but only for ROI dealers.

Thomasirl123

deezell wrote: »

" ...onward sold to a car-dealer in ROI."

Not to a private individual in ROI. Is this the end game?, imports from the UK restored with no additional VAT, but only for ROI dealers.

I'll be setting up as a "dealer" if that's the case

LillySV

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-margin-scheme-on-second-hand-cars-and-other-vehicles-vat-notice-7181

Here’s the Uk doc that it relates to...
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-margin-scheme-on-second-hand-cars-and-other-vehicles-vat-notice-7181

Haven’t got to look at it as still working .... they tryin to get Irish govt to pull their fingers out and do something anyways

deezell

This is interesting;
https://www.breakingnews.ie/amp/ireland/car-importers-get-new-opportunity-to-challenge-vrt-system-in-court-1068215.html

This finding below even more so, as I took some criticism here when I said the OMSP regime was not transparent.

"However, the CoA's Mr Justice Brian Murray also ruled UCII was entitled to a declaration that there was a failure by Revenue to provide details of how the open market selling price for used vehicles was determined for the purpose of calculating VRT."

TomOnBoard

deezell wrote: »

This is interesting;
https://www.breakingnews.ie/amp/ireland/car-importers-get-new-opportunity-to-challenge-vrt-system-in-court-1068215.html

This finding below even more so, as I took some criticism here when I said the OMSP regime was not transparent.

"However, the CoA's Mr Justice Brian Murray also ruled UCII was entitled to a declaration that there was a failure by Revenue to provide details of how the open market selling price for used vehicles was determined for the purpose of calculating VRT."

As I understand it, this relates to the period from 1993 to 2010, as it involves an appeal to a case that was lost a decade ago.

A whole new case would need to be taken to force Revenue to be open abt how the OMSP is arrived at today.

newmember2

Time for us to move to driving on the right.